Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-02-05
TIE RTE Or JOHUR
An Awful Sacrifice Made nv Eanatical
honea in Old India


A repetition Of the Tohur ordeal
has occurred in q Brlhmin village near
Neemuch. in Bengal, the object being
TO avoid the Tonk Durbar assessment.
The two victims calmly assembled the
funeral prye, and bravely met death.
The villagers afterward took their
charred heads to Odeypore. Neemuch
is a town of British contonment in
the territory of GwaliOr, and is stu
ated ut a short distance from the
boundary separating that tract of
country from the state of OdeypOre, in
Rajpootana L. is just where one would
expect the JOhur To take place, if any
where; for it is essentially a Rajpoot
rite, like the sacrifice of widows and
infants. The present ease Is a remark
able one; for Johur, in past history,
was never used to avoid assessment,
and the telegram does not say whether
the victims are male or female.
Jonur is an awful rite. A whole
tribe may become extinct by it, us is
seen by several instances recorded in
history of the Rajpoot states. What it
signifies is the burning Of ONE to
save their honor. The Rajpoot is pro-
foundly jealous of the honor of his
women, and to prevent their falling
into the hands Of conquerors, then to
be dealt with as was often the case in
the wars with the Mahometans, he has
recourse 10 the JUhur that is to say.
the imm0lation Of every female Of the
family. And the Raipoot woman
gladly embraces Such "a refuge from
pollution; or even it she were not in
fear OF being forced away as a captive,
she would prefer it TO living OH as a
widow.
The loss OF 2 battle or the capture of
a city during the MahOmetan inya-
sions was usually the time when this
dreadful rite was practiced. Attic end
of the famed siege Of Cheetore, the
ancient capital OF the Rama of Obey
pore, by Ala-uddin, in 1903, the Rajpoot
chief, after an arduous day. passed the
night in bordering the means by which
he might save from the general de-
structiOn one AT least of his twelve
sons. Eleven of them fell during the
next few days, and when but one son
remained to the Rama, he proclaimed
the Johur. The funeral prye was
lighted within subterranean chambers
where the suns rays had never en-
tered, and the defenders of CheetOre
beheld the queens, and their W wives
and daughters to the number of several
thousands, pass in procession to the
fire. The beautiful Pudmani, the con
sort of Rama, who was believed to be
the chief object Of attraction for the
conquering Tartar, came last in the
throng. The door of the cayerns
closed; the fires ragged within; the
honor Of the Rajpoot women was
saved. When afterwards Ala-uddin
entered the capital on the death of the
Rama and his surviving son, who fell
in the conflict, he found it strewn with
the bodies OF its defenders, while smoke
yet issued from the recesses where the
women had perisned.
In the Johur on the occasion Of
FiroZ Shah's attack upon JeSsulmir,
some years after the event above
described, l6,VuJ females were de-
stroyed.
The Johur was practiced not only
when the foe Was the lustful and
bloodthirsty Tartar, there are also
instances Of it in the intertribal wars
of the Rajpoots. Numerous inscrlp-
tons on stone and on brass, according
to the archRologists, record as the first
token Of victory the captive wives of
the foe, and the law Of Manu- with re-
gard to female clptives in war is analo-
gous to those Of Moses and MahOmet
on the same point.